Fake
by StarWarrior72
Summary: Darth Vader has, at last, succeeded in capturing his son. Completely. Unharmed. And unconscious. But he tells himself it won't be too long before Luke is his usual slippery, violent, and very alert self.


Vader's men carefully carried the stretcher up the last small set of steps. The little body on the stretcher slid limply towards one side and one of the men swore softly. Vader felt a tiny hint of amusement as one of the strong, burly men carefully placed Luke's arm back over his body. He had escorted them up the many twists and turns, staircases and turbolifts that made up his castle. He would have liked to take the stretcher himself, but it was simply beyond the realms of what his master would allow him to do.

He opened the door for them, and watched as they carried his son into his new room. One of the two men tasked with carrying his son rested his end of the stretcher on Luke's bed, lifting the limp form onto the center of the mattress. Luke mumbled something undiscernible, and the two men quickly took their stretcher up again, and left the room. Vader stood, statue-like, at the door, watching as they left, before walking to his son's side.

Slowly, he sat down beside Luke, and Luke snuggled up against him, one little hand gently cupping Vader's knee. Vader smiled down at him, and gently slipped away, turning to his son's booted feet and gently removing the first boot. Luke yawned, and shuffled about on his bed, and Vader froze for a moment, boot in hand. Once his son had settled, he carefully removed the other boot before lifting his son and folding back the covers. He then placed the pair of boots, which he couldn't help finding amusingly small, beside the bed, and tucked Luke in.

Luke had been stunned, using a device of Vader's own invention, which had increased the range of a simple blaster's stun bolt to encompass what had seemed like a bustling rebel base, but had turned out to be only a mostly-automated outpost, and decoy. Luke had been found crumpled in a hallway leading towards the small hanger the base sported, and it had been Vader who had quietly performed a few quick medical tests on him in the privacy of the out-of-the-way little tunnel to ascertain that he hadn't been harmed by the bolt. To Vader's immense relief, he hadn't.

Luke's sleeping mind seemed to have decided that Vader had been still long enough that he was unlikely to move again, as he curled around his father once more, mumbling something. Vader felt a wave of something very parental, something he'd thought lost years ago, and gently cupped his son's face in his hand, forgetting how cold the prosthetic would be against Luke's bare flesh. Luke gasped, one hand slapping Vader's away, already pressing his cheek deep into the pillow to warm it once more, and Vader pulled back.

A moment later, however, he felt his fingers itching to touch Luke's face again, and he succumbed to it. Again, Luke flinched slightly, and again, Vader longed to apologize. However, a moment later, Luke was blinking slowly.

Not wishing to be found sitting idly by, doting on him, Vader was on his feet in a heartbeat, staring down at Luke, who was still blinking dazedly, apparently confused by his surroundings. Vader felt the affectionate smile creeping over his features again, and hastily stepped towards the foot of his son's bed so as to hide it.

Luke's eyes roved the room slowly, at least, all that he could see without moving his head, which seemed to be extremely difficult for him, given his current position, and the fact that he was still half stunned. At last, Luke wrapped his arms about himself and gave a great sneeze, making Vader jump much higher than he would have liked to admit. The instant he unfroze himself, he carefully moved the blankets up around more of his son.

Luke pounced on the movement, both hands grasping Vader's as he whispered, "Leia?"

Vader shook his head before remembering that Luke couldn't see his head, curled up and enclosed as he was, but he didn't bother to verbalize the thought. Luke was already looking at his prosthetic in great confusion, and Vader found himself smiling at Luke's odd behaviour once again.

A few moments, and several prods, later, Luke said softly, "You're not Leia."

"No, I'm not," Vader answered gently, slowly stroking Luke's cheek with his other hand.

Luke seemed to have accepted that Vader was not Leia, because he allowed the caresses, hardly reacting to them as he brought his father's hand before his face and blinked at it again. Vader noticed he was slightly walleyed. However, the boy continued to study his hand for a couple of minutes before he finally asked, "What make are you, anyway?"

"Make?" Vader asked, suddenly as confused as his son.

"Yeah," Luke said, and his tone said that most of his cognitive abilities had returned, "Your model number. I don't recognize your hand…" Vader sat in surprised silence for a moment before Luke asked, "You are a meddroid, right?"

At the words, Vader couldn't hold back a laugh, "I'm not a meddroid! I'm not a droid of any kind, that's my prosthetic you've got a hold of."

"But, your other hand," Luke protested, reaching for it.

Vader allowed his son to take it before slipping the first hand free and guiding his son's hand up to rest at the end of his stump. He supposed that his son had yet to register his voice, undisguised as it was. Luke had only ever heard him speak through a vocoder, but he couldn't help enjoying the casual nature it allowed their conversation that his son had not yet recognized him as the man who had maimed him.

"What happened to you?" Luke gasped, running his hand up Vader's other arm, looking for that stump.

Vader looked down at his tired, partly temporarily paralyzed, son. The boy had taken on a countenance of concern, and he loved to see such a calm, gentle expression on his child's face. He didn't want to ruin it by telling him the whole truth. He wanted to see his son stay like this, calm, peaceful, curious, relaxed in his presence.

"It was a terrible accident," Vader said carefully, hoping his son wouldn't catch the guarded tone, "My limbs were amputated, and I nearly fell into a river of lava. One might almost call it an industrial accident. On the job injury, if you know what I mean."

He had not expected Anakin's sense of humour to remerge, but its use seemed to have pleased his son, because the boy gave an amused little snort before replying, "Yeah. Been there."

"Oh, really?" Vader asked, starting to wonder if Luke would try to lie to him due to his lack of understanding of their situation.

"Yeah," Luke said, putting his own prosthetic in Vader's, "I'm a Jedi," he said, and he smiled, his eyes sparkling at the words, still held turned away from Vader, "Kinda different job, y'know?"

"I've heard."

Luke finally sighed deeply, "I guess it wasn't all just… just that."

Vader allowed himself to gather his son's limp body onto his lap, gently cradling the blonde head against his chest, trusting the boy's neck not to be strong enough yet to look up at him, "What happened?"

Luke took a deep breath, and Vader felt that his son had been waiting to tell someone, anyone, the whole truth, "You won't tell my friends, will you?"

"No," Vader assured him gently, "Tell me whatever you want to."

"Darth Vader is my father," Luke said at last, "We've never been exactly close. I actually thought I was an orphan for the nearly the first two decades of my life. No one even told me that he was a Jedi. I-I was raised to think that I was the son of a navigator on a spice freighter, but that was all I needed. I thought Anakin must have been the most fascinating, adventurous person ever to live."

Luke paused, but when Vader didn't speak, he continued, "Most people would wonder about the fact I called him Anakin too."

"I'm here to listen to you," Vader told him gently, "Not to question your stories."

"You don't think I'm making it up, do you?" Luke asked worriedly, but Vader didn't answer, so he eventually continued, "I idolized him. I would have given anything to get away from Tatooine, and fly among the stars like he did. I guess that they're right when they say that you should be careful what you wish for. I-," Luke gasped suddenly, desperately, "The Empire killed my family."

At the words, he was too overcome with emotion to focus on Vader for long enough to form sentences, as he suddenly broke down, clinging to Vader's tunic and sobbing. Vader had not tried to comfort anyone for as long as he could remember, so he simply sat, holding his son close, kissing the soft hair. After a long time, Luke took a gasping breath at last, and held it, wiping his tears away.

"I-I'm sorry," he gasped, "It's been… people don't usually hold grown men on their laps and coddle them like this. I feel like a little boy again, and I guess I feel like you've given me licence to act like one."

Vader smiled, "You don't need my permission, or my approval, but if you want it, you may have it."

Luke was now gazing at his knees, but Vader could sense his smile, "Thanks. You don't know how much that means to me."

"Would you like to continue to tell me?"

Luke nodded tremulously, "I need to tell someone. I became a part of the Rebel Alliance," he said, "I lived with them for three years before being given some direction in how to become a Jedi. I went to train with… Well, I shouldn't tell you. But he taught me, and after a few weeks, I started having terrible visions of my friends in pain, and I could no longer focus on my training, and I tried to rescue them. I-I met Vader. I didn't know at the time. That-that he was my father, I mean. He…accidentally cut off my hand…" Luke pulled up his sleeve, showing Vader the attachment of his prosthetic, "And then… he told me."

Again, Luke nestled against Vader and sobbed, "I'm glad I know!" he cried, "I'm very glad he's alive!"

Vader rocked his son tenderly, soothingly, not speaking to him. He didn't know if there was a proper way to react to that, even if he had been simply a concerned medic, but he was quite certain that there was no way to respond to it as the father that Luke seemed to want, and who he desperately wanted to be.

Luke's body seemed to be regaining its responsiveness, because Luke reached up and put his arms around his father's neck, pressing his head against Vader's.

"Of course," Luke said suddenly, "You already know all this."

Vader reached out in the Force, sensed Luke's awareness, but no fear, and he smiled, "You've got me."

"So, it is you," Luke said, "I didn't have a clue at first."

"That was my objective," Vader told him, "I didn't want to alarm you."

"I'm not alarmed," Luke promised, "A bit surprised, I guess. I've felt for a while that I'd come home soon. It frightened me far more to think that I might do so on purpose. But what's happened to your armour?"

"It's a costume," Vader answered his son, "I have no need of that ridiculous apparatus."

Luke finally pulled himself out of Vader's arms, crossing his legs and sitting down in front of his father. Vader summoned the extra blanket folded at the foot of his son's bed and brought it up, wrapping it around Luke. He took Luke's cue, and also crossed his mechanical legs on the bed as well.

"What about your prosthetics?" Luke asked, "Are they all real?"

Vader smiled at him, putting one metal hand into his son's palm, "Does this look like some kind of glove to you?"

Luke lifted the hand up to the light, looking at the beams filtering through, "No. But they're all… skeletal. And I'd heard that having prosthetics this old… how old are they anyway? I've heard it damages the nerves."

"This one," Vader said, holding out his right hand, "Is from the last time you amputated it."

At this, Luke blushed, "I'd forgotten about that."

Vader smiled, "It must be all those times you've been affected by supernatural crystals."

Luke laughed, "Yeah, must be."

"The rest are from… about the same time you were born. And as far as I know, there's no nerve damage involved."

"Really?" Luke asked, taking his father's hand again and looking at it, "So… they probably don't actually click together when you move them either, right?"

Vader laughed, freeing his hand, interlocking his fingers, and twisting them together before returning the hand to Luke to examine, "Where did you get your information?"

"Fixer," Luke said, and it seemed not to occur to him that this might require further explanation, "Can you really detach them and send them crawling after people?"

Vader laughed until tears came to his eyes, "No! Where did your _friend_ get their ideas?"

"And do they really move at night? On their own? Do they have little AIs in them?"

"No, no and no!" Vader grabbed his son's head, and forced it down towards his son's crossed ankles as Luke joined him in laughter, allowing himself to collapse on the bed, still giggling. Vader lay down too, and Luke immediately sat back up, taking the opportunity to, much to Vader's surprise, tickle his father. Vader somersaulted off the bed, landing beside it, locking eyes with his son, who looked every bit as startled at the sudden movement as if his father had taken out his lightsaber.

Not liking the look of worry on Luke's face, Vader stood, trying to make himself as menacing as possible, which he imagined was fairly menacing, and approached his son as though he was liable to take his lightsaber out at any moment. Luke started to backtrack away, crawling towards the other edge of the bed, and Vader threw himself at his son, tickling the boy in return and Luke shrieked and then laughed, grabbing Vader and attempting to tickle him.

Once they'd finished teasing one another, weapons firmly sheathed, and having finalized Luke's understanding that a prosthetic like Vader's was very similar in almost all respects to his own, they lay, panting, side by side crosswise across Luke's bed. After staring at the ceiling for a few moments, Luke took Vader's left hand in his own, once more holding it up to the light.

"It's all a lie, isn't it?" Luke asked at last, pensively, all traces of laughter gone from his voice.

"A lie?" Vader asked, "What's a lie?"

"Vader," Luke said, moving his father's fingers gingerly, "He's as fake as these limbs. You're the one who's real, aren't you, Anakin?"


End file.
